beech_nut

This is all true. Great folks in the training department but certainly the worst training I've ever gone through in the airlines and from folks I've talked to from other carriers we may have to worst training course in the airlines. Without the awesome instructors it would be ever worse.

DiveAndDrive

Oh wow. Thanks for sharing that. And by your last sentence, they don’t really have a training packet or a study guide they send out before hand, correct?

beech_nut

It has been a while since I went through initial but I believe there is a study guide for the flows etc...

Keizer Soze

You will receive a study guide with flows, memory items, and limitations before arriving at class. It is totally on you, as it is with any other training I have been through, to be prepared on day 1. If you pay attention in class, use your personal down time to study, read, and immerse yourself in the course material (as any professional would), you will breeze through ground school.

The big disconnect I see from other training courses is that there is not a ground school for systems training. I really don't think that is such a terrible thing. Most pilots complain about "death by powerpoint" so as far as I am concerned, not sitting through another 8 days of powerpoint is a good thing. You will receive access to slide presentations on all of the systems, your syllabus publishes which systems will be covered in your Cockpit Systems Integration (CSI) sessions. If you watch the slides, come up with a set of questions, and bring them to your CSI, you will spend 1.5 hours of briefing with the instructor going over the systems related to that lesson. Then each student spends 2 hours in the pilot seat of a FTD going through flows and systems that were covered in the pre-brief, including failures and abnormal checklists.

After you complete the CSI portion of training you get a day or two to prepare for your Type Ride Oral. After successfully completing the oral you get 4 FTD lessons and 4 SIMS before you take your Type Ride. Thats 8 flight lessons. Granted, your first intro to V1 cuts is on FTD 3, and the FTD is quite limited in control manipulation, so the best you can do is simulate an engine failure after takeoff in the second segment climb, but you get the V1 profiles on day 1 of ground school. So you have plenty of time to study and chair fly long before you get to FTD 3. Once in the sim, you will see that a V1 cut in this airplane is the same as a V1 cut in any airplane. And if you were a turbo prop guy it is way easier!

In my opinion, Spirits training program isn't any harder than any other training program. It is however more condensed than some. It is more reliant on you, the professional, to prepare for the next days lesson because there is not much hand holding in this program compared to others.

Your instructors, for the most part, are well aware of the limitations of this training program and do a lot to compensate to give every student an equal opportunity to succeed. But, just like any other training program out there, if a student doesn't have the right attitude and put forth the effort, the instructors will only go so far. On the other hand, if a student shows up prepared, has a good attitude, and makes an effort to succeed, the instructors will go out of their way (within reason) to help you succeed.

Flightcap

In my opinion the thing that makes our training the most difficult is the combined systems and maneuvers training. When I went through there was no dedicated time in the program to studying just systems because the Cockpit Systems Integration (CSI) phase focused not only on systems but also approaches and maneuvers. So you had to study for both simultaneously. If you don't have an organized plan on how to allocate your time and stick to it the volume of information presented at once will overwhelm you. But then that goes for any training program; at Spirit it's just quite a bit more so. Someone familiar with the current training syllabus should chime in here because I know they've made some changes since last May, possibly slightly expanding the timeline.

By the way, to the OP: I'm 90% sure you're the guy I was chatting with in Detroit this week. If you have any more questions feel free to PM me. Best of luck with your decision!

DiveAndDrive

Owe ya a beer, Mr Stone. Excellent write up, and thanks so much! I’m guessing the oral is “switchology” vs build the airplane?

more windshear

I’d like to meet these “few” guys and ask them how they passed the psych eval.

TrojanCMH

Yes. Basically memory items/limitations, what the fault lights could represent on the overhead buttons, flight control laws and the different protections, and maybe a few “teaching” questions to get you thinking. Your mileage may vary based on who your examiner is...


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flyingpuma1

Totally agree our instructors make (or break) our training here. This is my 3rd airline and 4th type and by far was the most stressful (worst) training program (instructors aside they are great)

Super EZ E

Welcome my friend! Happy you want to be here!